


Eastern Seas

by Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Series: The Travel Collection: Drabbles, Snippets, and Supershorts [31]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, GFY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-28
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-13 07:10:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/821464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snippets and shorts in the Gaearon Rhûnen AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Archive Road

**Author's Note:**

> "Out of the East" is a story which is not yet posted on AO3, or anywhere that isn't restricted. The premise is that Boromir is not found before Aragorn and Legolas and Gimli go after the hobbits, and is found later by a young woman and her brother who are from the furthest east, beyond the Red Mountains. He returns east with them, and with very little biographical memory. Many years later, he returns to Gondor, with a still very spotty memory of his past, and as one of the envoys from the queen in his new homeland.

The new road gleams white in the sun, an old secret revived to provide an easier way from the outlying cities to the rivers. Thavron reins in his horse at the top of a rise, looking down much of the length of his latest project. From the Archives in their fast mountain hold, down to the river docks at the head of the navigable Malenduin, the crushed rock, sand, and lime mix wound a safe road where once had been a dangerous and rutted dirt path ill-paved with gravel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "road".
> 
> Originally posted as part of [The Travel Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754), in the chapter [The Ever-Changing Road](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754/chapters/749674).


	2. Cross the Mountains

When they cross the mountains, climbing over the pass from one river's source to another, they see the first rain since their journey began, a cold mist that creeps into everything. Alagosiell laughs, and Thavron mutters about the risk on the steep mountain trails that lead down toward the barge landing. Randir thinks only that it is one more marker that he's passed from one place to another, leaving behind a life he remembers nothing of but a brother, and entering one where he has friends, and those who depend upon him to protect them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "rain".
> 
> Originally posted as part of [The Travel Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754), in the chapter [A Misty Veil](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754/chapters/1276502).


	3. Waters of Arda

The wind is favorable, filling the sails of the great ship as they leave the mouths of the Anduin, sailing into the Bay of Belfalas, the captain calling orders to sailors who shout and call to each other as sailors always do. Aragorn isn't certain why the soldiers who'd first seen it had said they were silent in their work, save that perhaps they were silent when in unfamiliar waters - and that now the waters of Gondor were no long unfamiliar.

"They are only silent on order for such." Boromir is standing beside Aragorn, watching the waters ahead of them as the ship begins the journey that will take them north to Arnor, and to the Havens there where they might dock, and continue the journey on land into the Shire and beyond.

"I had thought as much. Silence for unfamiliar waters?" Aragorn studies his friend's face for a long moment, seeing an ease there that he had not entirely expected. As if leaving behind Gondor was easy, even desirable, for all that he had returned willingly; far different from the man who had longed to return to Gondor all the time he had been away from it before the Fellowship had been broken.

"Waters unfamiliar, of the enemy, or of the Hîthduin, where the fogs prevent all sound." Boromir leans on the rail of the ship, a smile warming his expression. "I have seen them work in all, though it is hardest when waiting upon the ship to come close enough that we might ride into battle with the enemy unseen in the dark, and unexpected from the shore."

The wars that Harad had been involved in, that Aragorn had heard tell of and that those who'd told him of them had said were with enemies within, not without. "To what purpose were those battles?"

"To recover stolen trade and stolen children." Boromir's expression is darker once more, eyes haunted with memories that are less fond than those of battle. "They forget that we are rulers of the seas, and they raid upon our southern ports, thinking because they are far from our greatest cities that we will not defend them or avenge their hurts."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "wind".
> 
> Originally posted as part of [The Travel Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754), in the chapter [Sky-Song](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754/chapters/1471349).


	4. Gift

The forests of the lands beyond the seas in the east are tall and thick, a great source of timber for the ships that carry them across those seas, and others. Lithgwaloth rests a hand on the trunk of a tall, straight tree, akin to the great pines whose wood had made the masts and hulls of the ships that sailed from Numenor in an age long past, listening for the whisper that will tell her it is ready. It is a gift of her mother's blood, born of the Hîthduin that her mother's family has traveled for generations, and it has made her the first among the Falathrenedain to be given a station as high as one of the Mallenrim.

She smiles, nodding at the silence, and moving on to the next, seeking the trees that will make for the great houses ships to sail the seas and keep safe her homeland as the warriors do along the lands that edge the Harnduin, in the gap between the tail of the mountains and the sea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "tree".
> 
> Originally posted as part of [The Travel Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754), in the chapter [Branching From the Center](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754/chapters/1539051).


	5. A Haven of Mist

The small hollow is surrounded by the roots of trees, the bottom soft with moss. It is just large enough for two - maybe three - people, if none of them are dwarves. Legolas settles onto a curve of root, watching his host with a curiosity that has not left him alone since he'd first met Ráva under the eaves of Mirkwood, though he's often been able to ignore it.

Now, though, with the invitation extended to him to witness the coronation of Alagosiell, he had thought it worth his while to travel ahead of the others, to see the mist-shrouded lands that Ráva had spoken of as home. To meet the avari who had escaped Morgoth, and made friends of the dwarves in the Orocarni.

"Think you well of our home?" Moriornë had met Legolas and Gimli at Dragon's Reach, where Gimli had chosen to stay for a visit, while Legolas traveled over the mountains and north.

"It isn't far different from home, save in that it has never had the shadow tainting it." Indeed, Legolas thinks the forest here reminds him rather more strongly of home than anywhere else he's visited. It soothes the ever-present longing for the sea as well as the Greenwood does now, at least. "Though perhaps rather more like Erebor in the wariness of its inhabitants."

Moriornë shrugs, leaning back against one of the tree roots, dark eyes half-closed. "We have found a haven here, from those we feared and those who feared us. It's hard to shed such habits of secrecy, when they have brought us such safety. As I would imagine it difficult to shed your wariness of dwarves to become bond-brother to one."

Legolas tilts his head, a small smile curving his lips a moment. Though he hasn't made any formal oath to Gimli, the bonds of battle - and the long trip on the Anduin - are enough to justify Moriornë's title to the friendship. "We near came to blows more than once when first we met," he says with a shrug. "Though perhaps being friendly with Ráva, and knowing his close friendship with a dwarf, inclined me to provide Gimli a chance to prove a worthy friend."

"My brother is good at talking even the most stubborn of dwarrow around." Moriornë smiles, tilting his head back a little, into a stray beam of sunlight. "I should think a young eldar such as you would be a simple task."

"If he were to be given more than fleeting chances, it is perhaps possible." Legolas wonders if Ráva could even talk his father around to being civil to the dwarves of Erebor. It is a task that Legolas has often thought impossible. "In the end, though, he had not the chance." Before all fates raced toward the end of an age, and it was all they could do to hope to survive the storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "Hollow".
> 
> Originally posted as part of [The Travel Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754), in the chapter [Lost Deeps](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754/chapters/2020100).


End file.
